Contents

Overview

Strategy

Walkthrough

Map of E3M4

Collect the rocket launcher and rockets in this starting room, and go straight, heading up the stairs. Once you get to the top, just follow the hallway to a door. Open it. Follow this hall to a bigger room, and kill all the monsters in here from where you are. Then, run up to the 3 switches in this room. Hit the one in the middle, and turn around to see a platform rise (it will not if the crushing pillar has lowered into the pit), and collect the chaingun and goodies. Then, go back and hit the switch on the left, and turn around again and see a platform rise (again, it won't rise if the crushing pillar has lowered into the pit). From the new platform that just raised, collect the invulnerability sphere and health. Now go back and hit the switch on the right. Then enter through the opening to the right of it. Follow this hall to another opening.

Go through the opening, and go straight. Go through the next opening, and then go all the way straight in this large room (skip the two large openings to the right), and then there will be another opening to your left. Skip it, and go into the opening you should be heading to. Kill the lost souls and the Baron that appears in here on skills levels 3 and up, and get the blue key in this opening you are in. Then turn around, get out of this opening, go right, and take another right into the opening you skipped. Get to the other end of the room to the blue door and open it.

Kill the imps in this room, and go straight, opening the door (across from the blue door, not to the left, the wall across from the blue door is a door). Then take a left, and in this room is a blue square. Step on it a few times, and a door should open that you cannot open on your own. When the door is open, run through it, and go right. Follow this hall to another room, turn right, kill the imps in here, and run to the pillars that have switches. Go to the pillar on the left, and hit the switch on the west side of the pillar. Turn around, go right until you bump into a wall, and turn right again. Go through the opening you just opened, and get the yellow key. Now go back, and hit the west switch on the right pillar. Now go straight, and left until you hit a wall, and go right, into another opening you just opened. Now open the yellow door, and get the red key. Now return to the pillars, and hit the south switch on the right pillar. Now go right, take a left, and then right into this opening. Open the red door in this room.

Go left, until you hit a wall. Turn to your right and kill the lost soul. Check the wall he was guarding, and it should open. Grab the radiation suit, turn around, run straight through the lava pit, grabbing the health if you need to. Then, run into the pit. Open the door down here. Follow the hall to the exit door, and then go through the exit teleporter.

Secrets

Official

From the start, go left and walk along the path crossing a blood pool. Resting in the blood at the far end of the room is a teleporter; go through it to reach an otherwise inaccessible area.

After passing through the blue door, take the door on the left. Continue along this path through another two doors until you reach a room with three other exits. Take the one to the left (south). Inside this next room is a "<" shaped wall; open it to reveal a secret.

From secret #2, return to the previous room. Take the small door to the north. Walk through the lava and drop into the pit. A BFG rests at the bottom. Flip the switch to get out.

After going through the red door, you'll be in a narrow hallway with three alcoves to the right. Open the back wall of the third alcove to get a radsuit.

Non-official

From the start, go right and in the far left corner of the room with the blood river there will be a section with a helmet armor powerup in front of it, open that section for a shotgun and some shells.

Bugs

One "hanging leg" decoration (Thing 283) has no flags set for any of the difficulty classes, so it does not actually appear in the level.

After the area with the crushers, you come to a room with demons at either side. After this room if you turn around and press use, it opens the sector as a door and then closes after. It can be opened again from that side but if you open the sector and go back towards the start, you will get trapped and have to kill yourself or load a saved game, or in online play restart the game completely.

Inside the giant room where one side holds the yellow key and the other holds the red key, there is a way to grab the key through the wall on the red key side. You must position yourself perfectly or this doesnt work. You must make a run straight into the wall precisely where the key is located on the other side. You can't run along the wall, you have to run into it. This is a great technique for speedrunners.

Trivia

House of Pain was also the name of a hip hop group who coincidentally released their biggest hit Jump Around the same year id released Doom; the level name may be a deliberate reference to the band name. Likewise, in 1994 Doom II's version of hell included a map named "Nirvana"; and Kurt Cobain who was the lead guitarist of the band committed suicide that year and the map may have been a tribute to that.

The background music for this level is in a depressing tone, since "Jump Around" on the other hand was an upbeat party song.

The map's name "House of Pain" may be a reference to "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in which Dr. Moreau refers to his laboratory as the "House of Pain" where he conducts gruesome experiments on humans and animals alike. Given the scenery and atmosphere, it's not hard to imagine this map being a location used by the demons for human torture/experimentation not unlike Moreau's lab from the film.